People automatically and without realising become very talented at moving their problems through time, space and energy. You might know someone, who is particularly good at generalising and stating that things always work out this way, or everybody does that.
Now, of course, we all do generalise, it is part of the filtering that our mind generates in order for us to get rid of information that comes in that it is not relevant to us or that we have not picked up on.
It’s probably not everybody, it’s probably not always. It probably isn’t every single time but we and others continue to use this kind of language for ease in our communication. Is it causing us problems sometimes?
Do these generalisations trip us up? Do they trip us up when we are using them in our own language or perhaps when we believe the generalisations of others.
Those who generalise are being inaccurate some of the time because they continue to apply the rules to all occasions, painting their generalisation paint brush over a greater space than the original image and blurring the edges of the picture of reality. Although it does make our communication much easier.
When we are talking about time, space and energy this applies to the category of space because we are extending what we are saying to cover a greater space. Perhaps you know someone (and if you don’t then it is probably you!) who moves problems from the past into others. They like to share their story. Share their pain, zap their own energy and quite possibly zap yours at the same time too.
So, a classic example of this could be: “I have a terrible headache today. You know what it is like when your head is just pounding and you start to feel sick and as soon as you hear sounds or words?” It causes the person who hears that message to start trying on the pain that is being described to see if they know how it feels to have that pounding headache. This doesn’t put them into a particularly good state. It means the person communicating with you has very effectively moved their own pain through space, through time, from them and into someone else.
Now to be fair, you do always have choices about whether you decide to pick up that pain and ‘try it on’ and some of it will come from you being a bit more self-aware. Some of it comes from you being a better listener. Instead of just nodding your head in the right places and falling into their state with them. You don’t have to take other people’s pain. If for example, I have a pen and I give you that pen saying “Here I have a pen for you as a gift please take it!” I give it to you and you take it. Who owns the pen? Of course, you do, you own the pen, I just gave it to you.
Now, if that pen was my anger, or my aches and pains, or my sadness and I came to you and said “Here is my sadness, let me tell you all about it. I want to give you this information as a gift and you take it and make yourself feel sad then it’s kind of your problem.”
Remember you do have the opportunity and you do have the option to say, no thank you I do not want your gifts. Be aware of the people who do that to you and the fact that problems can be moved through energy. They can be moved from one person to the next and to the next. It’s a bit like laughter, it’s contagious.
We can also move problems through space by generalising that problems are in places that they were never to being with. We can move problems though energy by telling other people that they have our problem too. But can we really move problems through time? Well here is an example of how you can. So, what I want you to do. I am going to give you some sentences. I want you to notice how they make you think or feel differently.
I have a problem. Just repeat that to yourself and notice how it makes you think and notice how it makes you feel.
I did have a problem.
I had a problem.
I am going to have a problem.
I’m having a problem.
I’ve always had problems.
I’ll always have problems.
I’ll always have had problems.
What you will have noticed is that for each sentence the problem is travelling in a different place, or it might be stuck in the past, or it might be still in the present, or it might be moving into the future and if we try that again and change the word problem to happiness and I will adjust it slightly so it still works grammatically in some ways then we will notice how it makes you think or feel differently
I have happiness.
I did have happiness.
I had happiness.
I’m going to have happiness.
I’m having happiness.
I always had happiness.
I always have happiness.
I’ll always have had happiness.
You can once again think about where that happiness is – is it in the past, is it in the present, or is it in the future? Just by simply changing a few words in the sentence can make you think and make you feel very differently.
Doing these kinds of linguistic exercises doesn’t necessarily get rid of the bad stuff when we move our problems into the past or into the future and it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you will be wildly successful in the future just by talking about having happiness now and having happiness in the future, but you can definitely get in touch with a little sense of making yourself perhaps feel a bit lighter, or a bit heavier about things and that’s what this is really about. It’s not about massive major breakthrough changes but it is part of a bigger package. It is part of the ingredients of making things start to work a little bit differently for you.
Start playing with this. Start experimenting with it. What if the problems that stayed and the happiness that came and went were actually influenced by the expectations created in your language? If that were so wouldn’t you wish to be more cautious, just in case you possess the ability to influence your own experience?
Simply by saying that you did in the past, just as you do now influence your own world and will continue doing so long into your future. By being a bit of a mind ninja in terms of the way that you are using your language. Now of course if that was possible I am sure that you would make the very best possible use of it.
You would talk about those old phobias as opposed to your phobia. You would talk about the depression you had, instead of the depression that you have. You would talk about the success you are creating, instead of the success that you are looking forward to achieving. You would talk about the happiness that you’re feeling rather than the happiness that you are looking forward to. Do you get the idea here?
By changing a few little words here and there it starts to chip away at the iceberg of what could have been a big old problem from the past that you no longer want to keep dragging around with you in your rucksack of your life. It is time to put that down now. So yes, start to experiment with this and report back and let me know how that works out for you. Start talking about the old painful stuff as if it is old and in the past. Start talking about the stuff you want to and will achieve in the future as being bright, beautiful and not too far away. Instead of talking about the things that you want, talk about the things that you are doing. The things that you are achieving. Fix them in time and start moving towards them and start to notice the difference that that can make for you.
By Gemma Bailey
www.peoplebuilding.co.uk
